Leah Ilse Kadden

Leah I. Kadden née Molton, 95, died on September 8, 2024 in Chicago; beloved wife of the late Herbert Kadden; loving mother of Daniel (Sheri Mila Gerson) Kadden and Stephanie Maurey; devoted grandmother of Amalia and Sigal Kadden, Joseph (Cordelia) Maurey, Zachary Maurey and Tamara (Omid) Yasharel; great-grandmother of Aviva, Cyrus, Talia and Darius.

A private funeral was held on September 10 at Jewish Oakridge Cemetery. A public memorial service will be held Sunday, September 29, 2024 at 2:00 PM at Montgomery Place, 5550 S.Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60637.

Leah Kadden née Molton was born Lia Motulsky on Aug 29, 1929 in Fischhausen, East Prussia, Germany, a small port city on the Baltic Sea. Her father Herman Motulsky was a merchant who owned the town’s main department store, her mother Rena, a housewife. Both came from large Jewish families living across the province of East Prussia. Leah had two older brothers, Arno and Lothar. The Motulsky children enjoyed summers spent with their maternal grandparents in Guttstadt, East Prussia. Herman’s parents lived with Leah and family in their Fischhausen home.

The family experienced the Nazi rise to power directly. One of Leah’s earliest memories was of uniformed, jackbooted Nazi stormtroopers picketing her father’s store with anti-Semitic signs and slogans as part of a national boycott of Jewish businesses in April 1933. Herman was arrested in 1935 on political charges, after he was discovered to have forged a letter directing local Nazi party officials to remove the anti-Semitic tabloid Der Stürmer from public display in Fischhausen. For his act of defiance, he was sentenced to a 6-month prison sentence.

In 1937, the family was compelled to sell their business and properties in Fischhausen at grossly undervalued prices and to relocate to Hamburg.

In 1938, Herman was targeted for arrest again and held in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp for several months before his release on condition he emigrate immediately. He was forced to depart Germany without his family in October 1938 finding haven in Cuba.

In May 1939, Leah, her mother and brothers sailed on board the MS St. Louis, a German passenger liner bound for Cuba carrying 937 Jewish refugees. The ship, however, was prevented from landing in Havana, refused entry in the US and other Western Hemisphere ports, and was forced to turn back to Europe. Last minute negotiations averted a return to Germany; the Motulskys were among a group of passengers accepted by the Belgian government as stateless refugees.

A year later, German troops invaded Belgium and France. Arno was arrested as a “German enemy alien” despite being a victim of Nazism and transferred to a French internment camp (but eventually was able to immigrate safely to the US). As the German army approached Brussels, the family took to the road along with hundreds of thousands of Belgians. They crossed into France by foot in the direction of Dunkirk and for several weeks sought improvised shelter and food with others fleeing the invasion, evading bombardments in an active war zone. Though overrun by the Germans, they were able to return to Brussels unharmed.

Rena, Lothar, and Leah lived under German occupation for two years, forced to sell possessions to make ends meet, and ordered to wear a Jewish star on their clothing.

In 1942, to avoid deportation to Nazi death camps, Rena and her children went underground, arranging to flee across France to the Swiss border carrying false papers, avoiding police and the Gestapo at every turn. In October they illegally crossed into Switzerland but were quickly arrested and interned there for the duration of the war. Leah lived apart from her mother and brother, attending school with other refugee girls, then living with a foster family in Basel.

During the Holocaust, three of Leah’s beloved grandparents and many other relatives were murdered.

After the war, the family immigrated to the US in January 1946, reuniting with Arno and Herman in Chicago. Leah had been separated from her father for over 7 years.

Leah attended Hyde Park High School, and then Wilson Junior College, earning her Associate degree. When she became a US citizen, she took the name Leah Molton.

In September 1950 Leah married Herbert Kadden, also a German Jewish survivor. They lived in Hyde Park near her parents and Herbert’s parents. Leah worked in a dress store and insurance office, while Herb began a career as a manufacturers rep and account executive in the paper container and packaging industry.

In 1958 their son Danny was born. The family moved to a new townhouse on Harper Avenue in 1960, part of the large-scale urban renewal construction in Hyde Park. Their daughter Stephanie was born in 1962.

Beginning in the 1950s, Leah served energetically as a volunteer and leader for many community undertakings, including the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, League of Women Voters, Fifth Ward Citizens Committee (including a stint as co-chair), Bret Harte PTA (where she served as President for 2 years), Kenwood High School PTSA, statewide advocacy & lobbying for public schools, Congregation Rodfei Zedek, the American Jewish Congress, University of Chicago Service League, and countless political campaigns with the South Side chapter of Independent Voters of Illinois (IVI). Together, she and Herb worked tirelessly to elect independent and progressive candidates to local office, including Abner Mikva, Robert Mann, Leon Despres, Ralph Metcalfe, Barbara Flynn Currie, and many others. Whether it was phone-banking, organizing fundraising coffees, door-to-door canvassing and other get-out-the-vote efforts, Leah was front and center, often serving as a coordinator of other volunteers. For many years on Election Day, she served as “barn boss” at the Ray School voting site, coordinating poll-watching and voter turnout across four precincts.

In the 1970s she joined the staff of the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, training and supervising interviewers across the country for numerous opinion surveys and data collection projects. After retiring from NORC she partnered with Herb to grow his home-based shipping & packaging products business, serving as office manager and accountant. She also was the primary support for her mother Rena, who continued to live independently well into her 90s, then moved to the Selfhelp Home on Chicago’s north side. She was close to her brothers Arno, a renowned medical geneticist in Seattle, and Lothar, a successful furniture manufacturer based in Rockford, IL.

Herb and Leah enjoyed all the world-class cultural offerings of Chicago, regularly attending classical music concerts, cutting-edge Chicago drama performances, museums and art galleries, lectures, and films. They were enthusiastic participants in Elderhostel educational programs across the country and enjoyed frequent visits with their children and grandchildren in Tennessee and Washington state, and with many extended family members. They were also able to travel to many worldwide destinations, including visits to Israel and Germany, where they explored some of the places where they grew up and learned how that society was facing responsibility for the Holocaust.

When Herb died in 2002, Leah began a new chapter in her life, continuing to travel and exploring new opportunities to share her Holocaust story with audiences. In 2013 she authored a chapter about her Holocaust experiences in a published collection of narratives by child survivors (Out of Chaos: Hidden Children Remember the Holocaust. Northwestern University Press, 2013). In 2015 she spoke at a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum program held in St. Louis (https://stljewishlight.org/news/news-local/parallels-drawn-between-wwii-jewish-todays-syrian-refugees/#), where she spoke about how the Holocaust must guide our response to contemporary conflicts and humanitarian crises.

She previously contributed to oral history projects at Loyola University and for the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, founded by Steven Spielberg.

In 2012, Leah made the decision to move from her Harper Ave. home of 52 years and become a resident of Montgomery Place, just a few blocks away. There, she continued to be a joiner, volunteering on various committees, enjoying activities like the French conversation group and frequent classical concerts, and serving as a marketing “ambassador.” She continued to spend time with many Hyde Park friends, shop or attend concerts downtown, and travel. Her volunteer service work and advocacy continued through the local chapter of the Older Women’s League (OWL) and Congregation Rodfei Zedek.

Even as her health and mobility declined, she remained a regular presence at Montgomery Place functions, including Jewish Shabbat and holiday services, and made many new friends. She formed close bonds with her caregivers, and cherished visits from her grandchildren and great-grandson. In 2019, she enjoyed her 90th birthday celebration in grand style.

In her last months, she remained cheerful and positive. She would lovingly remember her husband, siblings and parents, and reflect on her journey through history. Her admiration and gratitude for her mother, who single-handedly saved Leah and her siblings from dangers and deportation during the Holocaust, were constant.

Just a week before her death, Leah celebrated her 95th birthday. Her sweet tooth undiminished, she enjoyed her birthday cake thoroughly.

Leah Kadden leaves behind a legacy of devotion to family, friendship and service to her community. She was steadfastly committed during her life to fairness, social justice and racial equity. She raised her children in the inner city, embracing its diversity and cultural riches. She worked to maintain family bonds across the country and around the world, and loved hosting family and friends visiting Chicago. She was actively devoted to Jewish life and to Holocaust remembrance, truthfully acknowledging and facing the trauma, loss and fear she experienced as a child, but striving to consciously build a positive and hopeful life for herself, her family and the larger world. The most powerful lesson that Leah taught was the way she remained cheerful and positive to the end, even in the face of the physical and emotional challenges of aging.

She will always live in our memory as a blessing.

Classic Leah quote: “Is there a cookie around here?”